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You are not a real polyglot if... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7161 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 41 of 299 11 October 2013 at 9:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Neo-Štokavian Eastern Herzgovinian FTW!
2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4673 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 42 of 299 11 October 2013 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
Bokmaal and Nynorsk are much more different than Croatian and Serbian. ;) 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 43 of 299 11 October 2013 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
If either of these is a yes, they probably spent some time learning about the differences between Swedish and Norwegian and getting exposure. Of course it's not as difficult as learning a completely new language, but that also takes effort. (don't parents translate for their kids when e.g. watching TV?) TBH it's a bit of a pet peeve for me how Scandinavians underestimate the exposure. If Russians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Croatians etc had this amount of exposure to each other's languages, they'd understand them with the same ease. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4627 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 44 of 299 11 October 2013 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A friend of mine who speaks only Russian and German goes to Croatia on holiday every year. She insists
that she speaks Russian to the locals and they understand her. Whether this is due to the similarity of the languages or the Croatians being accustomed to Russian tourism, I've no idea. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 45 of 299 11 October 2013 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Oh, Russians who don't speak English definitely have more comfortable vacations in countries that speak Slavic languages, but those who speak (tourist) English tend to just use it (well, not in Ukraine or Belarus). And it's definitely not the same level of mutual intelligibility that Scandinavians have - it's exactly what I called "deciphering" in my previous post.
(One more factor is that older people in much of Eastern Europe learned Russian at school... but they may dislike it for obvious reasons, and of course many don't remember much) Edited by Serpent on 11 October 2013 at 9:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 46 of 299 11 October 2013 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As for the main topic, a polyglot that speaks Finnish will always be more impressive (or at least special) to me than one that doesn't :P
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5339 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 47 of 299 11 October 2013 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, I think most of them have been in a business context. The same applies to the ones I met outside a business context, but the number is so small that it would not be statistically significant. The experience I have had though, is that a lot fewer Finns than what I expected actually do speak Swedish, but those who do understand Norwegian well. Whether that is due to exposure or other causes I cannot tell. I am afraid I never asked about the percentage of "comfortability" they felt, so I cannot make even an educated guess. I certainly did not get any complaints or remember any awkward situations or misunderstandings. I am not quite sure what you mean about parents translating for their children (brain down to 10% functionality at this hour). I am sure exposure plays a huge role, and do not underestimate it. Exposure is the reason Norwegians understand Swedish better than they understand us, and why Ukrainians understand Russian better than the average Russian understands Ukrainian. I do not know Bulgarian well enough to estimate whether it is close enough to be learned by exposure only for Russians, but if you say it is, I'll take your word for it. You are the expert in this area :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6707 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 48 of 299 12 October 2013 at 1:54am | IP Logged | |||||
People will sometimes ask me how many languages I know, and I always reply, "What do you mean by 'know'?" :p 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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